Shade in the Desert
by FallingToast
Summary: Flying face first through a shady portal was not how Danny wanted to spend his evening.
1. Prolouge

Danny had been having a great week. Danielle was stable, he had a truce with Valerie, and he was catching up on his schoolwork. Not to mention a new Doomed game was going to be released soon. Yup, things were finally going his way. He should've known Murphy had it out for him.

He was just doing a routine patrol around town. Nothing unusual, but Valerie had beaten him to the punch that night. For once he wouldn't have to deal with the box ghost! Danny did a lazy loop above the city. Reveling in the freedom of flight. He closed his eyes, just to focus on the cool night air billowing around him.

The dramatic change in air pressure was his first warning. Danny's eyes snapped open, just a second too late to avoid the portal. It came out of nowhere, as normal portals do, directly in front of him, as they usually don't.

_ Welp. _Was all Danny had time to think as he tumbled through. He had expected to end up in the ghost zone. That's where most of these portals lead after all. But this portal was different. It spat him out violently into an oppressive darkness.

_ **Wrong wrong wrong whole get out get out get out missing missing whole**_

It pressed in on him from all sides, crushing him for what felt like an eternity. Anywhere in the Ghost Zone would have been better than this, a small part of Danny's brain registered the thought. He did not know how long he was there for, but it felt like hours before another portal opened and he fell into a blinding light.


	2. Ch1 Sand

Hello everyone! I realize I forgot to put an author's note in the prologue, so here it is!

I'm sorry this update took so long, I'm still trying to work out a schedule for them.

Let's see, this is my first fanfiction, reviews welcome! If you see an error, please let me know, and I'll fix it as soon as I can. Thank you so much for reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, nor do I own Yu-Gi-Oh.

On with the story!

Ch 1 Sand

When Danny came to, he had sand in his mouth and sunburn on his face. Groggily, he sat up.

"Ooooh my head." He moved his hand up in a vain attempt to block out the harsh sunlight. His bright surroundings were doing nothing for his headache. Vaguely, he registered that he had turned back, but he had more pressing matters to think about. _Where am I?_ He scanned the area, hoping to get his bearings.

Sand

Sand

Sand

And would you look at that! More sand.

"Houston we have a problem." Danny muttered. As far as he could tell, he was in the middle of nowhere, presumably a desert. And not a soul in sight. With a bright flash of light he turned into phantom, flying up a little ways to confirm his suspicions.

"Great. A desert. Perfect." The heat was already taking its toll on him. Danny was one of the lucky few, outside of the far frozen, with an ice core. An ice core that could, under extreme heat, begin to melt, and go into overdrive to cool back down. For a full ghost, this wouldn't be much of a problem. As long as they had enough energy, their core would eventually stabilize. For a half ghost however...

Danny shuddered, remembering Frostbite's lecture on what a re-freezing core could do to human organs. "Yup. Just perfect."

He made a small lump of ice and held it to his head in an attempt to keep cool. Even in this ungodly heat, ghost ice would take up to a day to melt. Then he picked a random direction, and flew. "If I'm lucky, I'll hit a town. Then I can find out where exactly I am."

It wasn't until two days latter that he found any hint of civilization.

"Whoa." Pieces of wood and cloth were scattered about, half buried in the sand. Deep grooves were etched into the wood, "I wonder if there's any food around here," Danny asked the empty air. Then he sighed and started searching. Normally he wouldn't just rummage through someone's stuff, but no one in their right mind would just leave their belongings in the middle of the desert.

And, he had been wandering around without food or water for two days, so sue him.

"Aha!" Danny triumphantly held up a waterskin, it was half empty, and the water tasted kinda gritty, but it was better than nothing. He stood, and slung the waterskin over his shoulder. Then, not seeing anything else worth taking, he drifted up, and flew on. Perhaps a little warier than before. Whatever caused that much damage was something to watch out for. And, that wasn't the only thing on his mind. "Who carries a waterskin around these days?" the only reason that he knew what it was, was because of a video game. Set in the dark ages.

He stopped dead.

"Ooooh no. No no no no no no."

Danny started flying again. Faster. Trying not to panic. "It could just be a weird life-choice, yeah, maybe whoever this belonged to just really liked old fashioned things. Antiques! yeah that's it! Just an old, antique collector or something." _I'm probably just panicking over nothing._ But a traitorous voice in the back of his head reminded him, ghost portals appear randomly, they can lead anywhere, to any place... to any time. Because of course. Time travel. That would be just lovely.


	3. Ch2 More Sand

**Me, wrestling my motivation back: Hey ya'll! Sorry for the wait, as it turns out, I have literally no time management skills :D T^T **

**(also just so ya'll know I know nothing about where anything is in Egypt, Any towns you see mentioned probably never existed, if anyone knows about this stuff please let me know!)**

**really wanted to get this chapter out like two months ago, but I just wasn't happy with it till now but! New year, new start, so without further ado here is chapter two**

* * *

It would be a full three days after landing in the desert before he found a town.

"Oh thank God." Danny had been on edge since finding the wreckage, hopefully whatever had made those claw marks would think twice before attacking a town. Still a good distance away, he changed back into Fenton. It would be best to walk the rest of the way, ghosts almost never get a positive reception.

...

Stumbling the last few feet onto a semi-solid road, Danny decided that he hated sand. He was covered head to toe in the stuff, and had a nasty sun burn forming on his face.

There were a few people milling about the street, talking, laughing, carting baskets to and fro. They stared at him as he walked past. Danny glanced around, trying to find some sign of modernization. A phone maybe, or a fan. A fan would be great right now. Or a fridge. Something cold.

The center of the town seemed to be an open market. Vendors lined the street, waving necklaces, and calling out in booming voices while beckoning potential customers. His attention was completely occupied by the market, scanning the crowd for something, anything familiar, he failed to notice the figure approaching. As such, he took two steps forward before literally bumping into someone.

"Oof!" His arms pinwheeled for a moment before he fell. The man he had bumped into leaned down, offering Danny his arm and asked him something in a language he decidedly hadn't heard before.

He understood it almost immediately though,which dashed away any hope he had for still being in the present. After all, Ghost speak could only interpret dead languages.

Ghost speak was a somewhat new power that Clockwork had helped him learn. Most ghosts spoke a common language, a strange mess of garbled syllables and radio static. It was something that came instinctively to ghosts, but of course, nothing could ever be easy for Danny.

He had started speaking sporadically without noticing. A word here, a sentence there. And once he got stuck speaking (and writing) it for half a day. So he'd gone to Clockwork for answers and gotten a language/ history course instead. Since then, they had met up every weekend at noon and work on Ghost speak for the rest of the day. The result was being able to negotiate better, and it allowed him to speak in dead languages once he heard them. As his fluency grew, he would be able to speak in living languages, as well as dead ones, without being spoken to first.

It was a helpful power, but Danny wished he didn't need it now. After a moment he replied,

"Yeah, yeah I'm okay," as the man pulled him to his feet.

"Are you sure?" he asked, "you took quite a while to answer."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," Danny sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, "it took me a minute to remember the language."

The man raised his eyebrows, "Foreign?"

"Yes, I'm," Danny paused. He was going to need some sort of backstory, something he could tell people if they asked where he was from, or what he was doing in the middle of an unfamiliar desert. Somehow, he doubted 'Hi, I'm a ghost from the future and I accidentally fell through a magic portal.' was gonna cut it. "... Traveling! I'm traveling. I'm from a place called Amity, have you heard of it?" that question was a last desperate hope. Amity had made international news after the Ghost King fiasco. But the man shook his head.

Danny sighed and continued, "Yeah, you probably wouldn't know of it, it's a small town. But I was heading to the- what's the river called- The Nile! I've heard it's really impressive so I wanted to see it for myself. I think I might have taken a wrong turn somewhere in the the desert though."

"You are very lucky," the man frowned, "not many who loose their way in the desert ever find their way out of it," then he smiled, "let alone so close to their destination."

The man pointed towards the market, "We are currently in Quibilah, it is a small town, roughly three days West of the Nile." He opened his mouth, with a question on his face, when the ground began to shake, and a thunderous roar split the air.

* * *

nightwingbangarangzero- *salutes* I intend to!

.106- time-travel shenanigans really are the best lol

Maatkare of Egypt- digital cookie if you can guess who! XD

2000DragonArmy- it has arrived!

Ghost- I know I haven't updated in a hot second, but I promise that I will never abandon this story! hope you like this chapter too!


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